The Trump administration is pushing hard for the reauthorization of a key 2008 surveillance law — section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA — three months before it sunsets in December.

To persuade senators to reauthorize the law in full, the Trump administration is holding classified, members-only briefings for the entire House and Senate next Wednesday, with heavy hitters in attendance: Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, NSA Director Mike Rogers, and FBI Director Christopher Wray will give the briefings, according to an internal announcement of the meetings provided to The Intercept and confirmed by multiple sources on Capitol Hill.

Section 702 serves as the legal basis for two of the NSA’s largest mass surveillance programs, both revealed by Edward Snowden. One program, PRISM, allows the government to collect messaging data sent to and from foreign targets, from major internet companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. The other, UPSTREAM, scans internet backbone sites in the U.S. and copies communications to and from foreign targets.

Both programs ostensibly only “target” foreigners, but likely collect massive amounts of Americans’ communications as well. And despite persistent questioning from members of Congress, the Obama and Trump administrations have repeatedly refused to provide an estimate of how many domestic communications the programs collect. Civil liberties advocates have long warned liberal defenders of the program under President Obama that one day the surveillance apparatus may fall into the hands of a president with little regard for rule of law or constitutional protections.

Privacy activists have also raised concerns about how the data is shared with law enforcement, and routinely used for purposes unrelated to national security. The FBI frequently conducts “backdoor searches” on the data during ordinary criminal investigations, which allows them access to Americans’ communications without having to get a warrant.

According to a 2014 letter the Obama administration sent to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, the FBI frequently queries FISA 702 data, and the number of those backdoor searches is “substantial.” And before the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the government has compared the frequency of these searches to the frequency of making Google searches, according to documents obtained by the ACLU and reported on by The Intercept in April.

It is unclear whether the Senate will pass a reauthorization of Section 702 without reforms, but the prospect of a “clean reauthorization” is likely to face serious resistance in the House. The House has twice passed legislation defunding warrantless “backdoor” searches, but both times the measures gained no traction in the Senate and were stripped out by leadership.

Top Photo: Admiral Mike Rogers, Director of the National Security Agency (NSA), testifies during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 23, 2017.

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Given the options, I still find Trump much, much less damaging, honest, democratic and morally grounded:

// __ Obama: ‘Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls’

youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
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I think Obama could easily claim the Guinness World Records for the most highly dense packed bunch of lies and b#llsh!t in a public statement. Having sat his black @ss in law school for 12 years seems to have helped him with something.

I still find Trump way less damaging; MORE honest, democratic and morally grounded.

At least he acts in the open and, for the most part, in explicit ways, which I think is what the political establishment in the U.S. hates about him. I like how he doesn’t interrupt prestitudes, letting them give him sh!t to their heart’s content. The fact that he is a “what you see is what you get” kind of @ssh0le makes him way safer than any of the Obamas and Hillarys kinds of politicians.

If you want to have one of those moments in which you don’t know if you should laugh or cry out in anger, I would suggest watching to MSM talking about Trump’s “moral relativism” (or lack thereof?)

https://www.sbnation.com/2017/2/5/14516156/donald-trump-interview-transcript-bill-oreilly-super-bowl-2017
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I wonder why exactly can’t you compare the USG to, say, Russia or China? USG, their acolytes and local collaborators have “freedom-lovingly” 8-timed the genocidal ratio of Nazi Germany during WWII (very basic 6th grade Math) and, talking about “moral relativism”: when Nazis were doing their “freedom-loving” they went head on against Russia, Britain, France …, armies which could defend themselves on an equal basis.

“Civil liberties advocates have long warned liberal defenders of the program under President Obama that one day the surveillance apparatus may fall into the hands of a president with little regard for rule of law or constitutional protections.”

I think that boat sailed long before Obama got into power and had even reached port by the time George W. Bush got his hands on the ship’s wheel.

The GOP is the most dangerous organization in human history! They are Neofacists, new fascists, Nasis from the dark side of the moon! They’re baaack, with yottabytes! Chomsky on the GOP: Has Any Organization Ever Been So Committed to Destruction of Life on Earth?https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/26/chomsky_on_the_gop_has_any

Trump doesn’t need any of the surveillance tools at all. In fact, the people who are equipped with the tools are all Never-Trumpers.

The Trump Administration is now filled with Obama holdovers and Shadow Government appointees. They are the ones who are pushing for the re-authorization of the tools. Lo and behold, despite some initial feigning by the Congress, they will in the end oblige the Shadow Government with a bipartisan majority. This is how corrupted the system is. Trump is the Outsider.

Trump should not spend a single minute worrying about the passing of Section 702. In fact, he can give many people including John McCain and Chuck Schumer sleepless nights by announcing that he is going to let it lapse. Then just wait and see the reaction. I can bet on a bipartisan meltdown.

This is the right time for Trump to get his Repeal and Replace Bill passed by making it conditional with the re-authorization of Section 702.

NSA Chief Rogers has all the 30,000 Hillary’s deleted emails. Just notice how no one in the Senate asks him about them whenever he is called to testify. I hope someone, just one someone, can drum up some courage ask pop the query next time Rogers shows up.

Trump doesn’t need any of the surveillance tools at all. In fact, the people who are equipped with the tools are all Never-Trumpers.

Just patently wrong. Trump’s Attorney General, Director of National Intelligence, Director of the FBI, Director of the CIA, and his homeland security and counter-terrorism advisor are all clamoring to get this section of FISA reauthorized.

Trump should not spend a single minute worrying about the passing of Section 702.

And he won’t, because he’s simply too dull-witted to understand it. The only chance for him to turn is if Fox News all of the sudden begins to lobby against it (they won’t).

In fact, he can give many people including John McCain and Chuck Schumer sleepless nights by announcing that he is going to let it lapse. Then just wait and see the reaction. I can bet on a bipartisan meltdown.

Having a bipartisan meltdown suggests they’d have enough votes to override the President’s veto.

This is the right time for Trump to get his Repeal and Replace Bill passed by making it conditional with the re-authorization of Section 702.

I’m going to assume this is a joke and that you don’t know how to convey sarcasm online.

Another program, TRAFFICTHIEF, scans all internet communications for various keywords, regardless of whether the communications are between American citizens or not, and sticks the associated files into the long-term NSA storage depot. (This is what you might call an ‘informed guess’). Not just metadata, also any unencrypted content:

TRAFFICTHIEF (TT) is the NSA corporate alerting and tipping system. Independent collection systems such as XKEYSCORE provide real-time messages, called events (tips), to the TRAFFICTHIEF server. TRAFFICTHIEF receives these tips in real-time when targets are actively communicating, enhances messages with geo-location information and then immediately alerts analysts to this activity. . .

This process loads all the dictionaries and fingerprints and then performs dictionary scanning, metadata extraction, databasing of metadata, and archival of content.

But it’s not actually “collection” until some actual person looks at it, since this is an automated program . . . If any warrants are needed, they’re granted after the fact – making it all “constitutional.” STASI would be proud of such circumlocution. . .

Trump doubtless wants every communication containing both “Trump” and words like “corrupt”, “idiot”, “blowhard”, “incompetent”, etc. flagged. . . But Rex Tillerson probably just wants to spy on global oil interests so he can leak it all to ExxonMobil. Steven Mnuchin and Gary Cohn likely will use it for the insider trading benefits, with Goldman Sachs raking in the benefits. . . “How much cash can we hustle using this in the next three years?”

Meanwhile, they are also attempting to serve one or more warrants to Facebook in the effort to make them cough up the names of “anti-administration activists” – Which strikes a chilling tone especially considering the way this administration has materialized since January.

This gets almost comical, if it wasn’t so serious. A lot of this information is classified. Which means that we’ll have what, more press conferences where Ron Wyden speaks in Python like secret code? I can’t tell you specifics. But this is really bad. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

This term should also be in quotes. My spouse, being a naturalized US citizen and I, being a native born US citizen, have both been under 24/7 surveillance via our smartphones now for several years. And before that, we have been under the watchful eye of government by having our international mail (foreign to US) intercepted, open, read and then forwarded onto us. Our phones tapped, incessantly questioned at the borders on travel up the point of almost missing our flights and restricted at least on one occasion from purchasing airline tickets to a southern California airport. That was fun. I tried to book travel via a travel site when I hit submit for a quote, the entire screen went black and a red, one inch horizontal stripe across the screen appeared with white block lettered text that simply read: GOVERNMENT RESTRICTED.

I strongly suspect that the term, Foreigners, means to the government anyone who became a US citizen within X years of 9/11 event. We first noticed our surveillance of unlawful wire-tapping and the mail invasions back in 2004-2006. I had to write to our House rep, and both Senators from our state to get those things stopped.

However, we’ve both been under 24/7 phone surveillance now for a number of years.

I don’t believe your “Targeted Individual.” Willing to provide some evidence to make your case?

My spouse, being a naturalized US citizen and I, being a native born US citizen, have both been under 24/7 surveillance via our smartphones now for several years.

What is your evidence of this, and if true, why are you both still using the phones? Also, what is your proof of the government opening your (inbound?) international mail?

I tried to book travel via a travel site when I hit submit for a quote, the entire screen went black and a red, one inch horizontal stripe across the screen appeared with white block lettered text that simply read: GOVERNMENT RESTRICTED.

That’s ridiculous. What website was this and did you take a screenshot?

questioned at the borders on travel up the point of almost missing our flights

I don’t think this is very unique.

I had to write to our House rep, and both Senators from our state to get those things stopped.

Proof?

Lastly, if you are so obviously being targeted, did you convey your claims to a lawyer, and if so what did they say?

What is your evidence of this, and if true, why are you both still using the phones? Also, what is your proof of the government opening your (inbound?) international mail?

We have actually seen someone scrolling through both our texts and emails. Secondly, when I text my spouse or there certain naturalized citizens, my phones data is confiscated via upload. This is evidenced by intermittent power loss from full battery charge to completely dead in no more than 15 seconds. It’s obvious. Also, intermittent blinking LED on Droid phones is an indicator that the mic has been turned on. I’ve tested this by re-initializing the device to factory specs. The issues goes away for two days, then returns. Killing the battery will also cause reset, but comes back after ~17 minutes.

These are known surveillance issues. I also have other confirmation of these issues as a known problem, but cannot or will not state how I know this publicly here openly on this thread.

Spouse was naturalized in Nov, 2001, just two months after 9/11. I. Just reviewed the gov issued cert. I suspect this is the reason for our being on a watchlist, due to the fact there are relatives back then in Qatar, Israel,philippines and Palau.

Didn’t take screenshots as it happened so quick as to catch me off guard.

Being question at the border, there has also been other occurrences such as a customs agent admission that another name has been linked to my passport and that I’ve seen customs agents referring to certain indicators regarding my passport.

For a long time I used an old style flip phone, but due to the nature of positions I hold in the companies I worked for, this was not practicable.

If I consult a lawyer, it won’t be for this but for something more serious.

As for the opening mail issue, there was a story on CNN back then about others having their mail opened. When I asked my spouse, it was confirmed our mail had been diverted from Philippines to Singapore address, opened, retaped shut, then forwarded onto US here in the states.

This and the year long beeps on my phone during conversations was my first realization that we were under surveillance.

They are just messing with you in an explicit way to make you worry about it and test how fear works in you/your spouse.

Depth imaging with photon bombardment is a technology that exists to read inside envelopes. I don’t know if it is being used to read the inside of envelopes en mass right now at all USPS facilities. Also, they have chemical ways to open envelopes without you noticing it, as they routinely do in their so-called “black chambers”.